An intraluminary prosthesis (e.g., a stent), is a medical device used in, for example, the treatment of body lumens (e.g., diseased body lumens). A stent is generally a longitudinal tubular structure configured to radially expand when deployed at a desired implant site.
Although endoprosthesis delivery devices are well-known in the art, the assembly of such a delivery device is often complicated. Also, loading an endoprosthesis in such delivery device may be often difficult and time-consuming. For example, an endoprosthesis may be a polymeric or plastic self-expanding stent, which may be difficult to load on a delivery device due to its length. In some cases, elongation of the endoprosthesis may be required while loading in the delivery device. An elongated endoprosthesis may be difficult to accurately deliver at a desired location. For delivery of a relatively long endoprosthesis, a corresponding delivery device may be long or a high delivery force may be required.
Some endoscopic delivery devices are described by Heyn et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,201,757), Wang et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 6,331,186), Hanson (U.S. Pat. No. 6,432,130), Euteneuer et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 5,562,063), Stenzel et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 6,830,575), and Rabkin et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 7,074,236).
Thus, there exists a need for improved endoscopic delivery devices suitable for delivering an endoprosthesis, such as a stent. In particular, there exists a need for improved endoscopic delivery devices suitable for delivering an endoprosthesis having a length of about 30 centimeters or greater.
Without limiting the scope of the present disclosure, a brief summary of some of the claimed embodiments is provided below. Additional details of the summarized embodiments and/or additional embodiments can be found in the detailed description.
A brief abstract of the technical disclosure in the specification is provided as well for the purposes of complying with 37 C.F.R. 1.72. The abstract is not intended to be used for interpreting the scope of the claims.
All patents (e.g., U.S. patents) and patent applications (e.g., U.S. patent applications), and all other published documents mentioned anywhere in this application are incorporated herein by reference, each in its entirety.